France General Discussion II: Living under Marxism

[Velasco]

Your second point, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think unemployment has passed 12% in the UK since the 1930's. A significant level of unemployment is something like 25-30% out of work. The current unemployment rate is 7.9% I think.
People have had this belief for most of the period between the early 80's and 2008. This loss of belief that your children would have a better future was widespread in the 1970's, in fact so was the belief that western society was on the edge of collapse. Again your belief that people should be 'guaranteed a job if you look for one' is only one that can be achieved by the government taking control and micromanaging the economy. This, 'workers have enough strength that you don't have to accept every one of the bosses demands' is nonsense, its this kind of militant attitude that is the reason for the collapse of western manufacturing not the 'evil policies' of Thatcher and Reagan.

I'd say that a 25-30% unemployment rate is not significant, it's catastrophic. These are the levels that reached USA and Germany in the 30's. Curiously, Spain has reached 25% this year. A 12% of unemployment is terrible enough and a 7.9% rate is regarded as quite bad in countries like USA. Since your nick is 'Mittens' you must be well aware.  I don't want to look like a prophet of disaster, but everybody knows the consequences of that financial crisis of 1929 (Hitler, II World War, etc). Since the current financial crisis has certain parallelisms with the 30's, as some experts like to remember sometimes, we're not living in the better world possible and it's quite worrying the fate of Europe, and not only in the troubled South, if its leaders persist in following the same suicide policies. The reasons of the financial collapse following the Lehman Brothers issue are arguably related to certain economic practices that favoured speculative economy instead of the 'real' or productive economy. Claiming that unions or 'militant attitudes', as you say, are guilty of the downfall of western manufacturing is hilarious, to say the least. Everybody knows that this path to glory was inspired by theories devoutly followed by Thatcher and Reagan.

This thread is derailed by dangerous Marxists, how funny.

[Velasco]

The Destiny's Anointed, then. I'll send a greeting card to Carla.

[Velasco]

FdG, like FN, are never going to win an election any time soon

Are you sure that FN is not going to win national elections one of these days? When Sarko and that nasty catalan called Valls have almost the same speech, you can give for granted that FN has already won. The original and the copy, says Marine.

[Velasco]

Today France definitely met its Blair/Schröder/Zappatero and directly switches from an unconfessed 'social-democratie' to 'social-liberalism'.

That doesn't sound new. The main difference between the little and nervous Catalan and Zapatero is that the latter was more sensible towards immigrants and other minorities, which is at least a signal of decency. But all the politicians you mentioned are just useless 'social liberals'. The right, you know, has been fighting a Gramscian battle for cultural hegemony since the 70s. The European socialdemocracy and the left have been defeated and/or reduced to a pitiful state. They are all innocuous. That's why I'm considering giving a chance to our new Gramscians, although the whole thing poses in me more questions than answers.  

Also, LOL Flanby.

[Velasco]

I was thinking that the real 'anti-establishment' peril in France was Panzergirl and not the innocuous FdG. The French electoral system might produce a supermajority for the UMP, instead of 'saving' the PS from a terrible fate. As for PSOE, ask me after the 2015 elections, especially if a 'Grand Coalition' materializes from the air.

[Velasco]

I was thinking that the real 'anti-establishment' peril in France was Panzergirl and not the innocuous FdG. The French electoral system might produce a supermajority for the UMP, instead of 'saving' the PS from a terrible fate. As for PSOE, ask me after the 2015 elections, especially if a 'Grand Coalition' materializes from the air.

PSOE going into Grand Coalition with PP will be the signing of their death warrant. No way are they stupid enough to do that unless they are pressured by the European centre-left clique that seems to govern what these parties do. What's more likely to happen is that Podemos, PSOE and Izquierda Unida form a very small majority government with nationalist parties as constructive support. After that it's anybody's game. Spanish politics is going to get very, very interesting...

Asked on electoral coalitions with Podemos, Pedro Sánchez said that he's not going to make deals with "populism". Actually, he said that PSOE is "incompatible" with Rajoy's "resignation" and with said 'populistic' peril incarnated by Podemos. However, Susana Díaz was more ambiguous on the issue, stating that she doesn't want to be distracted by "lucubrations". That's important, because she's likely the shadow boss of the Spanish socialists. Also, a PSOE+Podemos+IU majority is hard to achieve, as I tried to explain in the Spain's discussion thread, and nationalistic parties such as ERC are not in a 'constructive support' phase. We have left behind the Zapatero years. Don't discard pressure from the "European centre-left clique", of course (Sorry for the off-topic).

[Velasco]

Something must be going wrong when Manuel Valls is taking the lead, don't you think?